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See our review of the pending proposal here.
“I think we’re shining a light on it more and under these circumstances, it’s more pronounced,” said Anthony Wright, a social worker with Chicago Public Schools. “The pandemic has compounded issues of stress and trauma.”
“Based on Lightfoot’s comments, she seems to believe that high school basketball should be allowed in CPS right now. That’s a surprise to Public League coaches and athletes, who have been stuck in limbo for months.”
While the contentious showdown between CPS and the CTU has stolen much of the thunder rumbling over school reopenings in the state, scores of Illinois schools, many of which are in economically disadvantaged communities like Joliet, Cicero and Decatur, have been closed since the arrival of the pandemic last March, and some have already announced plans to remain closed for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year.
“How is it safe enough to resume high school sports, like basketball, but keep the same kids home for instruction? Hundreds of high schools across Illinois have been opening on at least a partial basis since last fall. But not CPS.”
Sen. Julie Morrison said Thursday’s hearing before the Senate Health Committee was scheduled amid “hundreds of questions and concerns from constituents” regarding the rollout of the vaccine, citing a “confusing” scheduling process. “I hope this hearing will lead us toward a path of greater efficiency.”
“Nothing in these House Rules improve transparency or bring sunlight to legislative proceedings,” House GOP spokesperson Eleni Demertzis said in a statement. “The same problems previously pointed out by good government advocates – like taking a midnight vote on a several-hundred-page amendment or budget only moments after it has been filed – are allowed by and re-authorized in these Rules for the next two years.”
“It’s not ideal, it’s not perfect, but it’s definitely better than the alternative which as we’ve seen is for the legislature to essentially not meet despite all the problems that we have now to solve,” said Reform For Illinois Executive Director Alisa Kaplan.
“It’s very hard to say that it’s anything other than a contempt for voters,” said Professor Brian J.Gaines at the University of Illinois’ Department of Political Science. “It’s an affront to ordinary democracy when someone who’s just been re-elected and at the beginning of their first term, days or weeks in, steps down. It’s clear that it was a maneuver, that they didn’t intend to stay in office.”
“High-tax states are under more pressure now than they’ve been in a long time,” said Jared Walczak, of the Tax Foundation. Last year, the five states with the biggest proportionate outbound migration were California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and New York; Four of those five states were ranked in the bottom five for business tax climate in 2021. Illinois ranked 36th.
Another 30-day order Friday reauthorizes a slew of previous orders, ranging from waiving sick leave requirements for state employees to suspending provisions of the Illinois school code, to a residential eviction moratorium and regional mitigation metrics. They’ve all been extended through March 6.
In its previous reporting period, that team found the CPD missed 70% of its deadlines. But the department said this time around it submitted more documents — more than 8,100 in total — to the monitoring team than in its previous two status reports combined. Officials say that’s due in part to playing catch up on those missed deadlines, but add that it also speaks to the accelerated rate of reform within the department.
The CDC attributes the disparities to unequal access to care, structural racism and implicit biases in the health care system that also can lead to a higher prevalence of underlying health conditions that complicate pregnancy.
The revenue is divided in this way: more than a third to the state’s general revenue fund; 10 percent to the state’s backlog of unpaid bills; 8 percent to law enforcement; 2 percent to cannabis public safety campaigns; and a quarter of every cannabis tax dollar collected goes to the Restore, Reinvest and Renew program.
“Why are they trying to make people come back two weeks after the first vaccine dose and not two weeks after the second vaccine dose?” CTU president Jesse Sharkey said. “It doesn’t make any sense. And we argued that hard….The only thing that we’re going to do to actually get them to not open schools at this point is to not go in. They cannot run schools without us.”
Sheila Bedi, a civil rights attorney from Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, noted the report makes no mention of the higher-than-usual number of complaints filed against Chicago police officers this past summer stemming from protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, or disproportionate enforcement of Illinois’ COVID-19-related stay-at-home order by Chicago police against Black citizens.
One of the fatalities was a 42-year-old man trying to break up a fight in Austin on the West Side. He was shot by one of the two men who were fighting.
Under the state’s vaccination plan, most college instructors won’t be eligible to receive COVID-19 inoculations until phase 1c, though their counterparts in primary schools can get the shots now. Phase 1c isn’t projected to begin until spring at the earliest.
Jim Dey: “Like the universities of Texas and Michigan, the UI agreed, among others things, to defang its bias-response teams that were created to identify and punish those accused of making unacceptable remarks, whatever they were…Among the issues that pit students against each other on campus are disputes related to Israel and the Palestinians in the Middle East and affirmative action. On the UI campus, disagreements about retired symbol Chief Illiniwek also cause angst.”
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